Author(s): Judy Chicago

Art | Artist Monographs

Judy Chicago is America's most dynamic living artist. Her works comprise a dizzying array of media from performance and installation to the glittering table laid for thirty- nine iconic women in The Dinner Party (now permanently housed at the Brooklyn Museum), the groundbreaking Birth Project, and the meticulously researched Holocaust Project. She designed the monumental installation for Dior's 2020 Paris couture show and, in 2019, established the Judy Chicago Portal, which will help to accomplish her lifelong goal of overcoming the erasure that has eclipsed the achievements of so many women. The Flowering is her vivid and revealing autobiography, fully illustrated with photographs of her work, as well as never-before-published personal images and a foreword by Gloria Steinem. Chicago has revised and updated her earlier, classic works with previously untold stories, fresh insights, and an extensive afterword covering the last twenty years. This powerful narrative weaves together the stories behind some of Chicago's most significant artworks and her journey as a woman artist with the chronicles of her personal relationships and her understanding, from decades of experience and extensive research, of how misogyny, racism and other prejudices intersect to erase the legacies of artists who are not white and male while dismissing the suffering of millions of creatures who share the planet. With the first career retrospective of her work forthcoming at the de Young Museum in 2021, Chicago reinforces her message of resilience for a new generation of artists and activists. The Flowering is an essential read for anyone interested in making change.

Review: 'Judy Chicago's 'The Flowering' is the update to her autobiographical writings we urgently need. It recasts Judy's pioneering sensibility for the important debates of our times, ensuring her pivotal place in the discourse of feminism and art' - Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries
'This inspiring read tells the story of one of our most influential contemporary artists: a woman who was able to break the barrier of a male-dominated, chauvinistic system by revealing to the world what feminine creativity can produce. The imperative now lies in transforming this message into a reality for tomorrow' - Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Women's Collections, Dior
'Now, we need Judy Chicago more than ever' - Gloria Steinem
'Combining engrossing, urgent storytelling with illustrations, personal images and a foreword by Gloria Steinem, Chicago relays the story of an artist determined to ensure that women's cultural achievements are permanently valued' - TIME
'The art icon's frank autobiography unpicks a long career dedicated to changing the world for the better' - Elephant
'A full and frank life story' - Harper's Bazaar

Contents: Preface by Gloria Steinem
1. Introduction
2. Coming of Age
3. Making a Professional Life
4. Becoming Judy Chicago
5. Making Feminist Art
6. Learning from the Past
7. Back to L.A., and Womanhouse
8. Dreaming Up the Dinner Party
9. Controversy? What Controversy?
10. Giving Birth to the Birth Project
11. Is There an Alternative to the Art World?
12. Expanding My Gaze
13. If You Don't Have, You Can't Lose
14. Why the Holocaust?
15. The Dinner Party Goes to Congress
16. Lost in Albuquerque! Found in Belen?
Afterword

Author Biography: Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist and educator whose career spans almost six decades. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; LACMA: the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; the Hammer Museum; the Getty Trust; and SFMOMA. Gloria Steinem is an American feminist and social political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.